The Online Literary Journal of the Bronx Writers Center

“Calvary”

Your room faced sunlight almost daily,
Taking its time to travel across the parking lot cloudy with fresh rolls in warm puffs,
From the bread factory down the street.
It faced sunlight
And collected it in little paper cups you lined along the window sill –
With your lunch choices and crossword puzzles.
I asked you all the time – “why so many?”
But you shrugged your shoulders like a guilty child
Fist tight with treasure.
He played the guitar and traveled from room to room –
Ballads, rock tunes, secret hymns,
In languages that trailed from floor to floor…
You taught him a Yiddish folk song from a hundred years ago,
You said it came to you all at once
Like a hidden spearmint wrapped tight in a pocket.
He took that song with him and blended it like paint.
The calendar pages I taped to your wall –
Cassatt, Hopper, Henry James,
Were never straight when I first hung them –
Crooked from the first scratch across the page…
Dangling days too tired to cheer themselves straight.
But they hung there all the same,
Determined corners – specks of tape.
When they gave me your things all neatly boxed and bagged,
Offered their wishes
Generously poured from bright, yellow pitchers –
They asked about the posters, about Henry…
About the random girls who sat combing their hair by the mirror…
But I left them there for the next hopeful face,
Left Henry and the combing girls, the slanted sunny Hopper –
Its lonely buildings with its shadows –
The funny little cups I left behind, little cups all filled with air –
Filled with frozen sunshine.

Amy Soricelli is a life-long Bronx resident. She earned her BS in English (’79) and her MS.Ed in Guidance and Counseling (’81) from Herbert H. Lehman College. She is a recipient of the Grace A. Croff Memorial Award for Poetry (Lehmann College) and her work has been published in Grub Street and PoetryBay.com. In 2006, she was selected to participate in a poetry workshop with Billy Collins at Lehman College. She is happily married and has a 17 year old daughter.